winter, through the, what?' — Lightstone looked down at his map — 'Cascade Mountain Range, when you probably can't even see out the window in a damned car, you're out of your — '
'Didn't you read the briefing document?'
'What, fifty-some pages of single-spaced type? Are you nuts?'
'You don't need to read the whole thing. They always put the really sneaky stuff in the middle, because they're pretty sure you'll skip that part.' Takahara smiled cheerfully when he located the page he sought. 'For example, page twenty-nine informs us that while the rest of us are busy reading snakebite-kit instructions and nailing cage doors shut, Special Agent Henry Lightstone will, and I quote, 'attempt to initiate contact with subject Alistaire Sager, AKA 'Sage,' for the specific purpose of purchasing wildlife parts and products made from a Sasquatch, AKA 'Bigfoot,' as well as suspected Apache Indian battle charms.'
'What?'
Henry Lightstone bolted off the floor and snatched Woeshack's copy of the briefing document.
'Also right here on page twenty-nine,' Takahara went on, 'it says that 'Agent Lightstone will endeavor to determine subject Sage's source of materials, as well as any links he may have with other illicit wildlife parts and products dealers in the area.''
'What's a Sasquatch?' Woeshack stared at the others bewilderedly.
'A mythical beast,' Larry Paxton replied absentmindedly as he quickly flipped to page twenty-nine of the briefing and began reading.
'More precisely,' Takahara expanded on Paxton's meager description, 'it's a mythical beast that stands somewhere between seven and ten feet tall, weighs about five hundred pounds, and believe it or not, has feet bigger than Stoner's… or at least that's what they say.'
'Wow, no kidding?' Thomas Woeshack's eyes grew wide in amazement as he glanced down at his huge partner's oversize boots. 'So what does that have to do with Apache Indian battle charms?'
'Better ask Henry,' the tech agent advised. 'He's the one who's going to be buying them.'
'I don't believe this shit,' Henry Lightstone muttered as he flipped over to page thirty and continued reading.
'Tell you what, Paxton,' Dwight Stoner suggested irritably, 'you either start exerting some serious supervisory authority around here and get these assignments changed so that Woeshack and I get to buy parts and products made out of eight-foot-tall mythical beasts from the local fruitcake, and Mr. Quick-Reflexes over there gets the spider-knee-painting detail, or you and I are going to go outside and discuss a change in leadership right now.'
'What the hell is this?' Paxton demanded to the room at large, ignoring Stoner's threat and tossing the thick document to the floor. 'Halahan and Moore must have lost their goddamned — '
'Just out of curiosity, did you get to page thirty-six?' Mike Takahara inquired. 'The part about the preauthorized shipping inventories coming out of Miami and Newark?'
Larry Paxton blinked, looked down at the discarded document, and then glared at his tech agent.
'No, I didn't get to page thirty-six yet,' he whispered menacingly. 'So why don't you just tell me what it says about preauthorized shipping inventories, whatever the hell they are?'
'To tell you the truth,' Mike Takahara replied seriously, 'I really don't think you want to know.'
Chapter Thirteen
David Halahan, chief of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's covert investigations branch, looked up when his obviously frustrated deputy walked into his office.
'What's the matter?' he asked.
'They can't find Boggs.'
Halahan frowned.
'What are you talking about? Who can't find Boggs?'
'Charlie Team… and Boggs's secretary,' Moore explained. 'Riley just called in. They've been out to his office and his house a couple of times, left a half dozen messages on his answering machine. Checked in at a couple of his favorite watering holes. No Boggs.'
'What does his secretary say?'
'Well, apparently it's not unusual for him to be out in the field two or three days without calling in.'
'Yeah, but he knew we were sending Charlie Team out there — ' Halahan started to protest, but then hesitated.
'Assuming he got the message in the first place,' Moore verbalized the thought in both of their minds. 'He never did call us back to confirm.'
'Yeah, that's right.'
'And to make things just a little more confusing, Riley says his house is locked up tight, the government rig's in his garage — they could see it through the side window-and his personal truck and boat are parked in the carport.'
'What about the government boats, other vehicles?'
'He's got two boats and a four-wheeler assigned to his office, and they're all present and accounted for in the storage shed next to his office.'
'Maybe he went out on a detail with some of the state guys?' Halahan suggested.
'Yeah, Riley's checking on that now. Thing is,' Moore went on uneasily, 'we don't want to burn the guy or his operation if he's got something going that we're not supposed to know about, but…'
'But he's a district agent, not a covert operator, and he's supposed to keep himself available,' Halahan finished.
'Yeah, right.' The deputy Special Ops chief nodded glumly.
'What's Charlie Team doing now?'
'Riley's got them staying in a couple of the local hotels while they work out vehicles and comm links. The plan is to break them up into three units — Donato and LiBrandi for the hunts, and Riley, Wu, Green, and Marashenko for the two rotating cover units, but we're going to have a problem with transportation if we don't get hold of Boggs pretty soon. We can get by on a rental for Donato and LiBrandi, no problem, because they're acting like they've got more money than brains anyway. But I was counting on Boggs to track down a couple of trucks and a van with Oregon plates for the cover units. Jasper County's a place where you pass your old car down to your kids, then go out and buy a newer used one. Brand-new rental cars won't blend in too well out there.'
'Christ, I never thought about that.'
'We can always wire them more money to pick up a couple of halfway decent clunkers from a used-car lot,' Moore suggested, 'but we've got to be careful about buying local. It'll look pretty suspicious if somebody starts poking around, tracks down some sale or registration paperwork, and then starts comparing dates.'
'These Chosen Brigade of the Seventh Seal characters don't like or trust the government,' Halahan reminded his deputy. 'You really think they'd walk into the DMV and ask for information?'
'No, but the way our luck's been going lately, Riley'd probably end up buying a car with a countywide history from some Chosen Brigade of the Seventh Seal member's used-car-dealing uncle. Far as we know, all of the members of the group were born and raised in that area.'
'Good point.'
'So I figure the best thing to do is send them over to Jackson, or even better, Josephine County, where they can spend a little more money and get something only a couple of years old that they can depend on not to fall apart in an emergency.'
'And in the meantime,' Halahan grumbled to his deputy, 'Donato and LiBrandi get to troll themselves through the local bars like a couple of county-next-door idiots looking for a quick and easy way to connect with a big-game trophy hunt. Jesus.'
Freddy Moore shrugged. 'Yeah, I know, but what else can they do if they can't find Boggs? I sure don't want them trying to approach one of these paranoid Seventh Seal militants out of the blue and try to bring the conversation around to illegal hunting. That's something a guy like Lightstone might be able to pull off, but he's in a different league.'
